Friday, June 15, 2018 — 5:30pm
Music of Frahm, Ferrari, and Aragón
Composer and organist Jared Isaac Aragón has been surrounded by music his entire life. Growing up in Central New Mexico, his parents owned a music store where he was given his first musical instrument: a glockenspiel. Soon after, he began piano lessons under Bobbi Carbajal and discovered a love for writing his own music. This passion led Aragón to pursue degrees in music composition from Eastern New Mexico University, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Arizona where he has studied under composers Mark Dal Porto, Robert Mueller, and Daniel Asia, respectively.
As a performer, Aragón has performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall, St. Mark’s Basilica, and the Vatican. In the winter of 2015, he had the chance to work with recently discovered handwritten manuscripts by Arkansan composer Florence B. Price; these manuscripts were edited by Aragón and made into critical editions suitable for performance and presented in a series of concerts at the E. W. Jones Black Music Festival hosted annually by the University of Arkansas.
Selected as a guest composer and organist for the 2015 Lucca International Music Festival in Lucca, Italy, Aragón presented a recital of contemporary organ music by Hispanic Composers and was commissioned by Italian flutist Antonella Bini to write a new multi-movement work for contrabass flute and piano. His music has won awards from the DissonArt Ensemble (Thessaloniki, Greece), Les amis de l’orgue de Montréal (Montréal, Canada) and the Santa Fe Community Orchestra (Santa Fe, New Mexico) and is published by Jeanné-Inc. and Firehead Editions. As a conductor, Aragón has conducted the Clovis-Portales Community Orchestra, the University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the Arkansas Winds, and the Bella Vista Community Concert Band. Now living in Tucson, Arizona, Aragón is organist and director of hand bells at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church.